The Odyssey eBook

“My dear,” answered Ulysses, “why
should you press me to tell you? Still, I will
not conceal it from you, though you will not like
it. I do not like it myself, for Teiresias bade
me travel far and wide, carrying an oar, till I came
to a country where the people have never heard of
the sea, and do not even mix salt with their food.
They know nothing about ships, nor oars that are as
the wings of a ship. He gave me this certain token
which I will not hide from you. He said that
a wayfarer should meet me and ask me whether it was
a winnowing shovel that I had on my shoulder.
On this, I was to fix my oar in the ground and sacrifice
a ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune; after which I
was to go home and offer hecatombs to all the gods
in heaven, one after the other. As for myself,
he said that death should come to me from the sea,
and that my life should ebb away very gently when
I was full of years and peace of mind, and my people
should bless me. All this, he said, should surely
come to pass.”

And Penelope said, “If the gods are going to
vouchsafe you a happier time in your old age, you
may hope then to have some respite from misfortune.”

Thus did they converse. Meanwhile Eurynome and
the nurse took torches and made the bed ready with
soft coverlets; as soon as they had laid them, the
nurse went back into the house to go to her rest,
leaving the bed chamber woman Eurynome {183} to show
Ulysses and Penelope to bed by torch light. When
she had conducted them to their room she went back,
and they then came joyfully to the rites of their
own old bed. Telemachus, Philoetius, and the
swineherd now left off dancing, and made the women
leave off also. They then laid themselves down
to sleep in the cloisters.

When Ulysses and Penelope had had their fill of love
they fell talking with one another. She told
him how much she had had to bear in seeing the house
filled with a crowd of wicked suitors who had killed
so many sheep and oxen on her account, and had drunk
so many casks of wine. Ulysses in his turn told
her what he had suffered, and how much trouble he
had himself given to other people. He told her
everything, and she was so delighted to listen that
she never went to sleep till he had ended his whole
story.

He began with his victory over the Cicons, and how
he thence reached the fertile land of the Lotus-eaters.
He told her all about the Cyclops and how he had punished
him for having so ruthlessly eaten his brave comrades;
how he then went on to Aeolus, who received him hospitably
and furthered him on his way, but even so he was not
to reach home, for to his great grief a hurricane
carried him out to sea again; how he went on to the
Laestrygonian city Telepylos, where the people destroyed
all his ships with their crews, save himself and his
own ship only. Then he told of cunning Circe
and her craft, and how he sailed to the chill house
of Hades, to consult the ghost of the Theban prophet